Oracle 12c does not eliminate the need for daily administrative tasks of a database administrator, however it does have many enhancement that can aid in the identification of problems/sub-par performance. Additionally, there exist two camps on monitoring the health of a database: One wanting to automate all monitoring tasks and let the database tell you when something is wrong; and One that wants tasks to remain manual where you keep a closer contact with database structures and are able to determine trends. Regardless of how you perform your monitoring, the following list of daily DBA tasks is a good general guideline. NOTE: This list is not limited to just error checking, a DBA job covers both error correction and error avoidance.
- Check for any database errors in alert and trace.
- Check for any networking errors in listener alert. (other network connectivity logs)
- Check for errors in Operating System log files for database servers.
- Check for errors in Storage Area Network log files.
- Check Space allocation for database storage. (database tablespaces)
- Check for Space availability at Operating System Layer.
- Check any Application Layer error logs.
- Installing, Upgrading, and Patching Oracle Database server software (OS) and application tools. (Test installing, upgrading, and Patching before production implementations)
- Allocation of system storage and planning future storage.
- Creating primary database storage structure (tablespaces)
- Create primary database objects (tables, views, indexes)
- Planning backup and recovery procedure.
- Consult oracle technical support
- Ensure compliance with Oracle license agreement.
- Modify database structures.
- Managing users and maintain security.
- Controlling and Monitoring user activity and privileges.
- Monitor and optimize performance.
- Maintain archive tape backup/recovery devices (other type of backup device).
- Backup and restore database. (including test recovery at least twice a year)
Larry Catt
OCP